CFP-E is a European Federation for Commercial Film Producers. The members are the national associations representing commercial film producers. Production companies who are members of a national organisation are automatically 'associated members' of the CFP-E.

French advertisers have said “Non” to in-house production

With APA members not lending directors to agency in-house departments (with the very odd exception) because it would be business suicide nor bidding against them because any system in which one company is a bidder and chooses the winning bid cannot operate fairly, we have focused on ensuring that clients understand the value of choice and competition.

It is for them to decide, of course how they want to spend their money. Is a monopoly supplier, in the shape of an in-house production unit or having three independent production companies fight for their work on expertise and price deliver the best value?

French advertisers have decided that the market- independent production companies- provides best value and, as a result in house agency production has all but disappeared in France.

The French producers association- the APFP – ran a brilliant campaign. The publicity they created led to advertisers considering the issue and leading agency in-house production in France to the guillotine.

In this email, APFP President, Julien Pasquier, explains how they did it:

Dear Steve,

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to address the APA members.

It is not so often that France can claim to inspire England in advertising productions.

Today we have won the fight against internal production by avoiding unfair, unequal and fallacious competition.

It did not happen overnight, far from it.

About 6 years ago the first reaction we had was to attack. So we raised attention to the public authorities. It was inconceivable to us that the legislator would not support us, as we are the source of creation, talent, development, and French cinema.

So we went all around the government, the Ministry of Culture, met media and economy key players. We hired law firms and lobbyists to reach decisions makers and write reports. We exposed the situation to the most powerful competition authorities in France.

Our cause was not clear to the legislator, our business was poorly identified and there was no action taken by the government. Communication agencies were going to destroy our ecosystem out of pure financial greed. The only victims in the government’s eyes were the advertisers who were being fooled. We were seen as a self-regulated sector so had to “figure it out.” The Government would not help us.

The result of almost 5 years of continued fight was almost nil. In-house agency productions multiplied at the speed of light. The independents were going to disappear, vacuumed by the finance departments of the communication agencies. David had lost to Goliath.

Our lifelong friends and allies would eradicate us by explaining to us that this was the natural evolution of business.

Cut.

A little over a year ago, news emerged from the USA of a federal investigations into internal agency production. It was a real earthquake in the market in France. Finally, something was happening.

This event motivated you, in England, to mobilize. You behave like the English do. Your networks are powerful and, in your territory, business is king. Your production companies declared that they would not submit competing bids against in house agency production units. It was a strong statement.

You inspired us. We French were going to react as French do: by going on strike. Each member of the APFP office called 10 producers, we mobilized 80 producers in 2 days and all committed to a common manifesto. It was a detonator. Finally we had a voice. Advertisers began to worry and wonder if all this was a good thing for their business after all.

There was no response from the agencies. Why? Because our fight is fair. You just had to dare to oppose it. And we will continue to oppose a system that does not respect the independents. The independents are the only ones doing the development work which is the basis of renewed creativity. The independents who are the only ones always looking to maintain a healthy competition.

Producers from all over the world then started to follow: Germans, South Africans. Each territory had the courage to speak out. The movement is now global.

This year we all understood that from now on we must share our experiences and our intelligence on a more regular basis. We all understood that we had a lot to learn from each other, that we need to coordinate independent global production and to rally post productions, sound and all those who defend talents.

The key to success in France was simple- as they saw the investigation in the USA, advertisers looked at the issue and concluded that they did not want their work to be done by agencies, particularly under any arrangement where production companies were invited to bid against an in house agency production unit and then chose the winner. Advertisers did not want anything to do with such a system, so they told agencies they would not accept their working in that way.

We must of course work to make ourselves better known and to explain our jobs better as it is not so obvious for everyone.

What the AICP and APA does is fantastic in that sense. You inspire us and the circle is virtuous…

Best regards

Julien Pasquier

President

APFP

26th JUNE

What happened at the World Producers Summit in Cannes?

Cannes represents the best opportunity to get producers from around the world to discuss business issues, opportunities and threats – in each market.

We do that through the World Producers Summit – a meeting for 100 production company owners worldwide organised by the APA,AICP and CFPE.

It is about intelligence sharing and to get the best picture of developments in each market, we started by having a representative of each of the 32 countries represented what issues they faced. Loss of respect for the craft of filmmaking, late payments and in-house production were key issues mentioned by more than one country.

There have been some very encouraging developments in the battle against unfair in-house competition (instances where the agency bids independent companies and themselves on a production) in France, which we will explain in a follow-up email.

We also heard from Emma Reeves, executive director of Free the Bid on their success in giving female directing talent more opportunity. Emma highlighted the example of HP, where backing for Free the Bid from the Chief Marketing Officer, saw a brand that had never used a female director before having 59% of its last 53 global campaigns directed by women.

This event has the objective of intelligence sharing, so each delegate can take the learning back to their own country and own businesses and apply it- but we also had an action point here – associations including the APA, CFPE and AICP agreed to share their bulletins to members on key business issues with WPS delegates. We have set-up a Facebook group for this purpose which you can join by clicking the link below.

The WPS is a private event so that production owners can freely explore their concerns, but we gave LBB’s Alex Reeves access to the chairs of the event – Steve Davies, Matt Miller at the AICP and CFPE President Tony Petersen after the event and he published the report below.

The World Producers Summit is coming back to Cannes

The CFPE, the APA and the AICP, along with our sponsors Chesterfield Group have announced the upcoming World Producers Summit which will take place in Cannes on Wednesday 20th June, 9am – 11am at Vegaluna Beach.

The WPS is an exclusive gathering of 100 production company owners from around the world, to share the latest thinking on the commercials production business.

RSVP to [email protected] in order to request a place. Spaces are very limited and will be distributed fairly. Please therefore wait for a confirmation email to guarantee a seat.

Hope to see you there!

2nd FEBRUARY

Conference Update

We had a fantastic meeting in Hamburg last week with plenty of information sharing & initiatives planned. More news on these shortly. Pictured above around a friendly table at Markenfilm we have clockwise from front left:

– Tony Petersen / Germany & CFPE President

– Stefano Quaglia / Italy

– Rasmus Ejlers / Denmark

– Indre Petrukaitiene / Lithuania

– Cornelia Opitz / Sweden

– Martin Poyner / United Kingdom & CFPE Manager

– Sorin Baican / Romania

– Dragos Vilcu / Romania

– Cem Eti / Turkey

– Bea Catteeuw / Belgium

– Vuk Marjanovic / Serbia

– Julian Dworak / Poland

– Francois Chilot / France & CFPE Honorary Chairman

– Julien Pasquier / France

– Xavier Prieur / France

– Chad Muserlian / Spain

– Mikis Modiano / Greece & CFPE Vice President

– Steve Davies / United Kingdom & CFPE Executive Vice President

– Carla Liziário / Portugal

– Aurimas Pukevicius / Lithuania

– Paul Holmes / Ireland

– Rudi Haller / Switzerland & CFPE Vice President

19th JANUARY

CFP-E Conference Hamburg

Only a few days to go until our next CFP-E conference on Friday 26th January in Hamburg. Eighteen nations confirmed to attend (including our newest members POLAND), we can't wait. If you have any issues you wish to raise, do inform your local association contact. If in doubt who this is - we can advise, if you don't have a producers association - we can help you form one and are happy to air relevant concerns in the meantime.

29th NOVEMBER

Welcome to our new members

The CFP-E are delighted to announce that Belgium, Italy, Portugal & Romania have now officially joined us, bringing our federation of national producers associations to eighteen. We cannot wait to compare notes together at our forthcoming conference this January in Hamburg.

10th AUGUST

ANA Report on agency in house production sees their Chief Exec conclude “You can’t be a buyer and seller at the same time”

The ANA – the American Association of National Advertisers – has published its report on agency in house production, entitled “Production Transparency in the US Advertising Industry”, attached.

The report looks at the issue from the perspective of advertisers and is separate from the US Justice Department investigation into bid rigging.

The ANA report concludes that agencies are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour that is a conflict of interest and damaging to the interests of advertisers.

Among its findings are:
1 – Clients don’t always know that in-house agency units are bidding, exacerbated by agencies giving those departments different names (that sound like independent production companies).

2 – Production business processes marked by agency control of the bidding system are “sometimes dysfunctional and conflicted”.

3 – “Non-transparent agency-controlled bidding can lead to costly, inefficient, and sub-optimal advertiser business decisions. The financial impact to marketers can be significant.” In other words, an agency bidding its in-house unit distorts the free and open market that exists where only genuinely independent bidders – independent production, editing or post companies – are bidding. The effect on that by an in-house unit bidding too means the advertiser doesn’t get the best price.

Bill Liodice, Chief Executive of the ANA concluded, in his interview with Ad Age:

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that’s a conflict of interest, so one cannot be certain that you’re going to get a fair playing field out of that type of process. You can’t be buyer and seller at the same time.”

CFP-E Conference 2018 in Hamburg

We can announce that the next annual conference of all CFPE representatives will be Friday 26th January 2018 in Hamburg where we look forward to welcoming joining members Belgium, Italy, Portugal & Romania who are finalising their applications at the time of writing. All associations have been notified & we’ll be in touch directly to coordinate nearer the time.

21ST JUNE

World Producers Summit 2017 and statement – Cannes Lions

This morning over 110 producers from across 34 countries gathered together at the World Producers Summit in Cannes, under the organisation of the APA, AICP & CFPE, to share knowledge of issues in the production industry. Thank you to all that attended & contributed. Resultant press release below...

The Young Directors Award 2017 call for entries is now open

The Young Directors Award call for entries is now open and runs through May 14th.

Now in its 20th year, the YDA – presented by CFP-E, Shots & now the AICP – honours directors who are just entering the advertising arena. This year’s showcase will premiere on June 22th at the Cannes Festival of Creativity. Those entering must submit one of their first four commercials / films in the category entered (i.e. animation, broadcast, etc.)

French Independent Commercial Producers' Volatile Indignation

French production companies have signed an open letter entitled “Unfair practice among France’s advertising agencies” as part of a worldwide rebellion by production companies against being bid against in-house agency production units because of the inherent unfairness of the agency both being a bidder and the judge of the winning bid (as set out in the UK APA member’s open letter, which appeared in Campaign).

Zurich Conference 2017

Our annual conference, this year in Zurich, was a great success.

We welcome Tony Petersen as our new President who will soon begin a schedule visiting all member countries and their consituent members, and we warmly thank Francois Chilot for 20 years unwavering dedication in his Presidency. Francois will remain connected with the CFP-E as Honorary Chairman.

One of our key decisions is the unanimous recommendation to all our respective membership that all future bid letters submitted by production companies include the following wording:

“We are submitting this bid on the basis that the Agency is soliciting bona fide competitive bids and on the understanding that to ensure a fair, legal and non-conflicted bidding process, no entity in the bidding pool, directly or indirectly, is a parent or subsidiary of the Agency nor connected to the Agency or any holding company the Agency are connected to.”

The purpose of this is to put the agency on notice that our production companies are happy to take part in a fair competition but not to have their bid used to enhance an agency in-house bid by providing creative and methodology that they can employ or to lend credibility to the agency bid. This wording is based upon wording that the AICP introduced last week for US production companies to use in their bidding letters.

The minutes will be distributed to all member associations.

31ST JANUARY

Upcoming CFP-E Conference in Zurich

The next CFP-E conference is being held in Zurich on the 3rd February at the 25 Hours Hotel. The agenda is to discuss, amongst other things, each country's respective challenges, the role and future of the CFP-E, agency in-house production, Brexit, YDA 2017 and much more.

Minutes from the meeting will be circulated to the member associations and representatives the following week.

19TH JANUARY

UK Production Companies Hit Out at IPA in Escalating Row - Campaign

Campaign explains today why an agency should never bid independent production companies when it is contemplating bidding its in house production department.

It does so by reporting the content of a letter to Campaign from 15 APA member companies.
As the article explains:

"The IPA has advised agencies to ‘ensure it does not use any information disclosed to it by a production company to enhance its own bid’. That is impossible to achieve in practice. A production company’s creative ideas and methodology are in its treatment and budget. It is impossible for an agency receiving those to un-know them when working on their own bid.

"It can’t be seriously suggested that an agency that wants its in-house production company to do the work is going to bid more than the independent bids it has seen. Even with the best of intentions, the process will be rigged against us and we don’t want to be part of it."

The strength of feeling on this issue was demonstrated by the most recent APA members meeting, which saw 140 APA members attend to discuss the issue at London's Courthouse Hotel.

CFP-e welcomes Tony Petersen - new Executive Vice President

CFPe welcomes on board Mr. Tony Petersen as the asociation's new Executive Vice President, replacing long standing and valuable board member of the board, Mr. Manfred Vogelsänger.

Here are some key facts about Tony - in his own words:

'Born in postwar Stuttgart 1947 to an actress and an officer. Today a convinced Hamburg guy since over 60 years.

With no proper education apart from 6 months as a Hippie Kid travelling across the USA in 1967. Plus 1 term of sociology in 68. Assisting still photographers for 3 years. after 5 years of photo-journalism for magazines like STERN + GEO. Shooting musicians on and off stage, and giving company to a few feature film, I occasionally entered the world of moving media in marketing.

Opened my first company in 1985 and stayed managing director/executive producer ever since. Stopped producing in 2012 in order to tell young creatives how to make good commercials. Since over 3 years involved in our german producers association.

The YDA 2016 Entry deadline is fast approaching

Upcoming CFPE Conference in Palma de Mallorca

The next CFPe conference is being held in Palma de Mallorca on the 8th April, 2016 at Palma Pictures. The agenda set for the meting is to discuss the future running of the CFPe and the plan for YDA 2016. Detailed agenda and the further details have ben distributed amongst the attendees.

Minutes from the meeting will be circulated to the member associations and the representatives on w/c 11th April 2016.

4TH APRIL

YDA Proudly Partners Up with Sparknews!

The YDA and Sparknews are delighted to announce they are joining forces in the move to promote positive innovation around the world.

YDA recently launched a vital new category – ‘Changing the World Frame By Frame‘. This brand new category aims to highlight innovative and positive action undertaken in the social environment field. YDA, in their ambition to go further, has formed a partnership with the media organisation, Sparknews, founded by Christian de Boisredon.

Sparknews is a key international player on the social impact scene, actively bringing together media leaders and the people behind these very important local innovative projects. Sparknews’ primary mission is to bring to light and share these inspiring and innovative solutions – thereby helping to spark action for change through an attractive video share platform and ‘Impact Journalism Day’ an international event uniting 70 leading newspapers from 50 countries worldwide.

With this exciting new partner, YDA will perfectly complete the Spaknews media offer by adding its quality and audiovisual expertise. YDA will also working to offer young directors around the world, the possibility of discovering a local story or even if you wish – an international innovation story, capturing it on film and bringing it to a worldwide audience on Sparknews’ collaborative video platform service, as well as on our YDA website.

We call on ad agencies and brands to join us, tell us their stories and meet the young filmmakers. And so, we at YDA, are there to put you directly in contact with these directors, actors or brands – those inspired people searching for solutions in your own neighbourhood or across the seas...

Match your talent with theirs and make something important happen. Show the world what you can do !

7TH MARCH

YDA Introduces Changing The World Frame By Frame

The YDA launches an exciting new category CHANGING the WORLD FRAME BY FRAME

Created by CFP-E president and YDA chairman, François Chilot, together with BBH co-founder and co-founder of The Garage Soho, Sir John Hegarty, CHANGING THE WORLD FRAME BY FRAME aims to give filmmakers a chance to highlight positive and impactful initiatives for global social responsibility.

The YDA wants to see and share extraordinary filmic stories based around social issues which effect the world. The entries are to highlight stories that cannot be confined to a traditional advertising spot and the YDA encourages a more documentary approach. Examples of stories which filmmakers could build their film around are below, but any story which highlights social issues will be accepted.

– Education and its fundamental role in social and economic development
– Clean capitalism
– Smarter cities and more efficient use of natural resources
– Product consumption and how choices impact our health & happiness
– Learning programs that shape tomorrow’s leaders
– Waste reduction and recycling into tomorrow’s consumer products
– New career choices towards a sustainable economy
– Future technologies and how they affect societies